Archie The Wonder Dog

I've managed to squeeze in a final finish this quarter and it's one which has been languishing on my FAL list since Q1 2015 - I think it had given up all hope of being finished, but I knew I'd get to it one day.  It is item two on my  Q3 FAL list  and I'm linking up with mere hours to spare! This is what it looked like at the start of the quarter (and the start of every quarter since Q1 2015!): The best photo I have of it - a blurry one.  What a surprise! The reason this made a reappearance on my FAL list (it was finished for the first time in Q2 2014 - here's the 'It's finished!' blog post from then ) is because the bobbin thread kept snapping.  Initially, I was going to re-quilt each line (one at a time so I could keep the binding on) with a heavier thread, but the thought really didn't appeal, which is why it has remained untouched for so long.  A couple of weeks ago, I got it out, had another think and decided that I could add...

After saying, in my last post , that I don't often get to say "I've finished!", I'm now saying it again!  You can tell it's the end of the FAL quarter, can't you?! When I put this quilt on my list  back in March, I'd done about a third of the quilting.  I managed to finish the rest of the quilting by the end of April, mainly by doing a line or two a day; it's amazing how quickly you can get something done if you do it little and often.  It stayed like this for another five weeks, though, until I finally trimmed it and stitched the binding to the front. It then took me almost three weeks to stitch the binding to the back, mainly because most of my hand sewing time has been taken up with the secret sewing (I've finally finished it so if you come back on Friday you'll get to see a finished item, rather than one with tacking all round the edge, which is what I feared may happen!).  I managed to do little bits here and there and y...

Over the last few weeks I've been lucky enough to receive some gorgeous parcels in the post and today I'm finally going to share the photos.  I'm not quite sure why it's taken me so long to blog about my wonderful post but I think the swap with Nicky and the fugly fabric party came at around the same time and there are only so many things I can squeeze into a blog post (I know, not much squeezing going on, that would imply short, snappy posts - not my thing at all!). A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to win Dana 's giveaway and this parcel of lovely Christmas fabric has been made very welcome - thank you Dana, I love it all!  (Oh, the shame!  I've just gone back to look at the ' I've picked a winner ' post and it's almost a month ago - I'm so sorry I've been so tardy!) Susan , let me know if you'd like a Christmas owl or robin for your bird quilt! I think it's going to work nicely with my other Christmas fabric...

Sorry it's taken me a few days to post this (thanks for all the entries, I can't believe how many I had!) - Archie and I have been locked in negotiations about his fee for this draw.  Let me tell you, he drives a hard bargain!  In the end we agreed on a dozen bits of puppy food (free sample from the vet - they're about the size of a pea...) which would be used in the draw and then a mini marrow bone type biscuit afterwards.  He wanted a big one.  I said no - it was a small one or nothing and he agreed.  He even agreed to get out of bed to perform his task! Here's the plan...(sorry about the dark photos, the clouds are out and the sun is hiding!) Negotiate with Archie about payment for the task and persuade him out of bed... I'm not sure it's worth getting out of bed for, it's lovely and cosy in here... You promise I'll get that biscuit afterwards?  Any chance you'll super size it? Cut out and fold all the entries... This takes far...

Just thought I'd pop in and let you all know that I'm still here! Now, before I forget, the second Christmas Gifts for Quilters post is up and Lynne is focusing on Aurifil.  I only have one reel of Aurifil (40wt - wonderful for quilting) and I'd love to own more!  Click the button to take you to the post - there's a wonderful giveaway going on over there! Another thing I mustn't forget is to show you what turned up last week.  Well, it tried to turn up but I wasn't in and the postie wouldn't squash it to death to get it in the letter box so it had to hang around at the depot for a day or so while I wondered what this mysterious parcel could be - in the end I decided it was going to be another washing powder measure or something equally mundane!  It must have been my lucky week as my name was pulled out of the hat for one of the September giveaways at Popular Patchwork and I won this... ...a big pile of dinosaur fabric!! I'm going to ...